You were born on a Wednesday.
It was snowing, I think.
I nearly died, and you too,
My blood pressure screaming as your heart rate bobbed and weaved,
A reaction to the terrible ordeal of being born.
The night I learned you were a girl
I lay in bed alone and asked you about yourself.
What is your name?
Beatrice,
you said.
Bee.
A name all your own, belonging to only you.
Beatrice the First:
Shakespeare’s snap dragon heroine;
Dante’s ethereal guide.
Traveler and pollinator;
Wings and a stinger.
Daddy was scared but I didn’t know until later.
He made jokes and played “Something’s Rattling, Cowpoke” by Ben Gibbard on the Bluetooth and held my right leg when it was time to push.
And suddenly there you were.
More alive than the Holy Spirit on Sunday morning,
Bigger than poetry
Bright as a technicolor daydream
And so substantial.
We did it. We made it.
The Tibetans believe that we are all wandering souls.
That crazy movie, Enter the Void, I think about it all the time.
We choose.
Did you choose me?
A willful, chronically sleep-deprived, anxious mess?
How did you know it would work out?
How did you know that my life would not start until, with an audience of doctors and nurses and your family, you were laid in my arms that cold night?
I have such doubts but this I know:
I will choose you every moment of every day and still
it will not be enough to repay you for giving me the gift of yourself.
